Vox Public Announcement - Peace in Our Times?

[Aidun]

Originally posted by nbarclay
Aidun, the Treaty of Versailles has a lot to do with why we want Vox gone from our continent. Even under Beta's proposal (which, by the way, has been rendered somewhat obsolete by the recent capture of Elipolis), Vox would have lost about a third of its land compared with our original border treaty. The very history you cite shows how dangerous it can be to hurt an enemy while leving them sufficiently intact to hurt you later.

As I said, whatever action you perform, whether you remove them or keep them alive, whether you have heavy or light demands for peace, it has positive as well as negative consequences. It is up to you to weigh which consequences are more important to you and which are less.

Aidun

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by vondrack

So, considering that our private communications with Vox DID CLEARLY INDICATE they wanted to sign peace with you BEFORE all this happened, I am less than sure their "truth" is as twisted as you believe it is. I'm sorry I'm not at liberty to quote the correspondence, but it was not like "we just want to let you know, guys, that we would like to sign peace with GS". The notice about Voxes wishing to make peace with you was actually an EXPLANATION of their behaviour that made absolutely no sense otherwise.

The problem is that if I make my mind - for whatever reason - up and assume the other party is not honest with me, I tend to see whatever that party does... as dishonest, naturally - which is further fuelling my distrust and/or hatred... as if seeing through (potentially) twisting glasses...

The fact that Vox wants peace is not in dispute. The problem is that they want peace on terms that would have been far more appropriate ten turns ago, after the tide had turned against them but before we had spent virtually our entire golden age focusing on our military. At this point, leaving Vox alive on our continent simply does not provide any benefits commensurate with the costs of guarding a border against them. And after Vox's decision to betray and attack us, we feel no particular obligation to go out of our way to accommodate them.

What bothers me most is Beta's initial omission of and efforts to gloss over the fact that the immortals Vox moved were dead either way. Vox may have intended the move to be a goodwill gesture, but the fact of the matter is that leaving them alive just because Vox was proposing a treaty unacceptable to us would have been rather inconvenient. Those immortals had been tying up a significant percentage of our troops for centuries, and we were tired of it. The idea of tying up our troops yet another turn (at a minimum), and of having to either disrupt worker activities or expose pikes on flatlands to firepower equivalent to an elite immortal (yes, one-hit-point units can kill if there are enough of them and/or they get lucky), was simply not acceptable to us. And letting Vox withdraw badly wounded immortals to heal when we weren't even close to agreeing on peace terms would have been even less acceptable. Yet Beta tries to paint Vox's efforts to get their immortals out alive when they were schedued to die anyhow as some kind of grand, glorious gesture, and to paint our decision to kill the immortals exactly when we had planned to do so as some sort of evil villainy. If you can't see why that bothers me, think about it for a while.

[Shiber]

Originally posted by vondrack
This is exactly what I was pointing at in my previous post. If you assume Vox are not honest with you (and can never ever be again - "because of their history"), you can never perceive their offers, however sincere they may be - as honest. They say: "we would forfeit ANY access to iron" (emphasis added). You hear: "we would not have any iron connected until we decide to attack you again". That's a vicious circle very difficult to break.

Vondrack,

We just can't take a risk with Vox again. What is so difficult to understand about this?
Personally, I was still in favor of peace without evacuation before Beta posted this thread. I believed that Vox has betrayed us simply because they believed that they had no other choice, and that the lies that they've posted about us were just meant for fun and role play and Vox (or everyone in Vox except for Beta, who persisted with this approach in his "History 101" thread) did not realize that we would treat their actions as a slander campaign. But when Beta launched his second campaign in an attempt to stain the reputation of GS even more, and present us as cruel and unreasonable, I realized that he is committed to his ways, that he may even hate us for bringing such an overwhelming defeat upon his team and that he will do whatever he can to hurt GS in the future, should he be given a chance.

To sum up, I can't speak for Nathan, but for me, I cannot trust Vox not because of their past actions, but because of their current and ongoing actions.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by vondrack

This is exactly what I was pointing at in my previous post. If you assume Vox are not honest with you (and can never ever be again - "because of their history"), you can never perceive their offers, however sincere they may be - as honest. They say: "we would forfeit ANY access to iron" (emphasis added). You hear: "we would not have any iron connected until we decide to attack you again". That's a vicious circle very difficult to break.

Indeed. It is also a circle Vox trapped themselves in with a pattern of deception and unreliability.

Have you had a chance to read the Portia Accord, the treaty by which Vox agreed to allow Lux to occupy some of its land temporarily? We got a chance to see it back when we and Vox were on friendly terms. Even when Vox seems sincere at the time, they cannot be trusted to keep their word if circumstances change.

Is it possible that Vox is sincere this time, and would keep their word this time? Certainly. But why should we take that chance when we don't have to? Why should we pay the price in unwanted risks for Vox's pattern of untrustworthiness?

[ZargonX]

[personal question]

As the Lux situation keeps being brought up, is it not true that GS made demands of Vox in exchange for Vox harboring Lux? Demands of someone doing something in their own sovreign nation?

[/personal question]

[Arrian]

Vox brought Lux onto our continent without warning. So yeah, we took issue with it, and wanted reassurances.

You don't see any foreign presence on Lego's continent, do you?

You're halfway 'round the world, and yet you see fit to tell us to make a peace that gains us nothing, and sets us up for nothing but trouble in the future.

Tell me, Zargon, what did Vox promise you that you're worried you're not going to get now?

-Arrian

[vondrack]

Originally posted by nbarclay
What bothers me most is Beta's initial omission of and efforts to gloss over the fact that the immortals Vox moved were dead either way. Vox may have intended the move to be a goodwill gesture, but the fact of the matter is that leaving them alive just because Vox was proposing a treaty unacceptable to us would have been rather inconvenient. Those immortals had been tying up a significant percentage of our troops for centuries, and we were tired of it. The idea of tying up our troops yet another turn (at a minimum), and of having to either disrupt worker activities or expose pikes on flatlands to firepower equivalent to an elite immortal (yes, one-hit-point units can kill if there are enough of them and/or they get lucky), was simply not acceptable to us. And letting Vox withdraw badly wounded immortals to heal when we weren't even close to agreeing on peace terms would have been even less acceptable. Yet Beta tries to paint Vox's efforts to get their immortals out alive when they were schedued to die anyhow as some kind of grand, glorious gesture, and to paint our decision to kill the immortals exactly when we had planned to do so as some sort of evil villainy. If you can't see why that bothers me, think about it for a while.

Just to further illustrate how difficult it is to judge someone else's intentions, this is a snippet from a PM we (Legoland) received from Beta on June 10, 14:55 my time (4 days ago):

- this includes Harry and his gang of immortals trapped on the mountains in the SE. As a show of good will - they will move down to tha plains where they will be easy targets. (they are all down to 1 and 2 HP's as it is). Also - they will need to move one worker to allow them to get by.

You can see that they did NOT try to hide the fact their units were badly wounded - they expressly informed us of the fact. Whether they told the same information to other teams, I do not know - I can speak for Legoland only. But from our PoV, there was no "painting" involved.

Originally posted by Shiber
We just can't take a risk with Vox again. What is so difficult to understand about this?

It is not difficult to understand at all. I did make it clear in my first or second post in this thread that I fully understood the reasons leading GS to demand Voxes leave Estonia.

Originally posted by Shiber
But when Beta launched his second campaign in an attempt to stain the reputation of GS even more, and present us as cruel and unreasonable, I realized that he is committed to his ways, that he may even hate us for bringing such an overwhelming defeat upon his team and that he will do whatever he can to hurt GS in the future, should he be given a chance.

And this seems to be the merit of the debate here... and the focus of my posts. I am not trying to demonize GS - I made it clear I understood your reasoning re: Vox leaving Estonia. What I, OTOH, feel as inappropriate, is all the fuss about "Beta's second campaign". I just do not see what was so bad about it and why is it viewed as yet another nail in the Voxian coffin...

To clarify even further - I am not naive and I know that whatever I write here is unlikely to make GS change the mind about withholding the final blow. I'm merely trying to calm the emotions down here, because from what I can feel, you and some other GS members would not trust Beta even if he told you the time of the day... Perhaps I am doing something wrong and my effort to show Beta is "less evil" than you believe he is sounds like I am trying to make you look "more evil". Not my intention.

Yes, Voxes backstabbed you. No debate.
Yes, Voxes caused you severe losses (at least economic). No debate.
Yes, Voxes made extensive efforts to make others join and/or support THEIR cause, not yours. That included presenting their views and their interpretations of what was going on. No debate.
Yes, you have valid reasons to want them gone (and yes, others have good reasons to want them stay where they are ).

But, please, let's tone down all this stuff about treachery, dishonesty, distrust, deception, lies, and whatnot...

[Arrian]

Just callin' as we see 'em, Vondrack.

-Arrian

[Theseus]

I'm sorry, but Vox was communicating to other teams the confidential terms of a treaty discussion then underway on JUNE 10TH!!!

AND, even worse, beyond that, if those were in fact terms communicated to you (i.e., about Harry and his gang), let me assure you that they were NOT the terms proposed to us; thus, whether on purpose or through an oversight, Vox has created a severe diplo falsehood.

/me has pretty much stayed out of this debate until now.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by ZargonX
[personal question]

As the Lux situation keeps being brought up, is it not true that GS made demands of Vox in exchange for Vox harboring Lux? Demands of someone doing something in their own sovreign nation?

[/personal question]

We did not view the presence of a third nation on our continent, with its capital right on our border (as defined by our border treaty with Vox), as strictly an internal Voxian matter. The situation held significant potential for unwanted complications for us, both with regard to politics on our own continent and with regard to politics with GoW and ND.

As I recall, it was actually Lux that we originally sought to negotiate with in search for a way to get some benefit out of the situation to compensate us for the risks we were being exposed to. From there, the situation got complicated, and Vox ended up paying us out of gold they had gotten from Lux.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by ZargonX
As the Lux situation keeps being brought up, is it not true that GS made demands of Vox in exchange for Vox harboring Lux? Demands of someone doing something in their own sovreign nation?

Vox gave Dissidentville to Lux, a city at our borders, but about 10 tiles away from their core and most likely completely corrupt. They did it without asking us or even warning, and they gifted it to a team, which was portrayed as untrustworthy and unstable unisono by all other bobian civs. Back then, the hawks among us called to attack Dissidentville for security reasons (our cities were largely undefended due to scouts and good relations to our neighbors). The doves said, let's hear what Vox got for it. Since we took a good part of the risk, isn't it fair if we asked for a part of the benefit? Imagine you had a civ living on your continent, and they gifted a border city to a civ, portrayed as warmongers. See our PoV?

Vondrack: We use the words treachery, dishonesty and alike, if we are asked, why we can't think of peace with Vox anymore. And it is not true anymore, that all of us want Vox to leave our island. That's the stance of the doves. The hawks want them extinct, and Betas new stunt has tremendously strengthened this wing. This is it, what Nathan meant with every word of Beta being a nail in Voxes coffin.

[nbarclay]

I'm still extremely puzzled as to what the show of good faith on Vox's part was intended to be. Yes, they made it easier for us to kill units we were going to kill anyhow, but how would that benefit us in any way if Vox expected us not to kill them? It might have made a good test of our willingness to act in good faith had we been the ones in desperate need of peace and had Vox had reason to mistrust us. But in spite of all the trouble Vox seems to have gone to to discuss their negotiations with us with other teams, they never even asked us if we wanted the gesture! For our part, we would have been perfectly content to kill the immortals where they had stood for centuries. It was allowing them to escape, or even allowing them to continue to tie down our forces longer than necessary, that was not acceptable (at least in the absence of a peace agreement acceptable to us).

[vondrack]

Originally posted by nbarclay
Have you had a chance to read the Portia Accord, the treaty by which Vox agreed to allow Lux to occupy some of its land temporarily? We got a chance to see it back when we and Vox were on friendly terms. Even when Vox seems sincere at the time, they cannot be trusted to keep their word if circumstances change.

I did not have a chance to read the Portia Accord, that's right. But trust me, I know at least as much about the whole story as you do. Most probably even more. Really. And as ironic and contradictory as it may sound, what I learned about Voxes and Beta through putting together the mosaic of the Luxian affair made me trust them more (on a personal level, to be precise), actually. Yes, I know it does sound very strange. And no, my information were not based on a single source.

Originally posted by Arrian
You don't see any foreign presence on Lego's continent, do you?

Actually, we do.
(and we are taking care of that)

Originally posted by Arrian
You're halfway 'round the world, and yet you see fit to tell us to make a peace that gains us nothing, and sets us up for nothing but trouble in the future.

Uh oh, this is getting exactly to where I am trying not to go. Arrian, if I or anyone from Legoland said anything you understood as "we want you to make peace", I sincerely apologize - we have no right whatsoever to tell you so. What we wanted to say (and keep saying), OTOH, was "we would prefer and appreciate you making peace with Vox".

Originally posted by Arrian
Tell me, Zargon, what did Vox promise you that you're worried you're not going to get now?
-Arrian

We were promised a picture of the famous warrior Grog. Autographed! You sure understand that we will do anything and everything to get this relic?

Originally posted by Theseus
I'm sorry, but Vox was communicating to other teams the confidential terms of a treaty discussion then underway on JUNE 10TH!!!

AND, even worse, beyond that, if those were in fact terms communicated to you (i.e., about Harry and his gang), let me assure you that they were NOT the terms proposed to us; thus, whether on purpose or through an oversight, Vox has created a severe diplo falsehood.

Theseus, the information was relayed as a response to our direct inquiry regarding the situation on Estonia. It seems to me it was pretty much the same text Voxes quoted earlier in this thread twice, later quoting it direct from their private forum, just reused for the purpose of responding to our inquiry - rereading your official response to the opening post, I do admit you objected being told this bit ever... wonder why was that? Beta? If it was never made clear the move of the wounded stack was a gesture of surrendering or "good will", I would agree that killing it off was not only "ok", but actually what one would expect you to do - as moving immortals, even wounded ones, are still immortals.

On a side-note: if it was a miscommunication or misunderstanding leading to the unfortunate failure of the peace talks and further escalation of mistrust in this thread, then the history repeats again... the ungraceful and sudden demise of Lux Invicta was, as far as I know, also a direct result of misunderstanding and miscommunication...

Though my point was that Voxes did not pretend (to us) their "healthy" units voluntarily stepped out of their hideout, but admitted the units were badly wounded... which is different from how it looks if you read the first post of this thread.


Now, everybody, I apologize but I am going to withdraw from this debate now - I can see I am in fact doing more harm than good, irrespective what my intentions are. Probably my fault for bringing this so far, sorry for that. Did not mean to offend, insult, irk, or piss anyone off.

[mrmitchell]

Could someone sum up this thread for me? I find yet another spamstorm a daunting task to cover.

[Arrian]

Vondrack, one last thing:

What we wanted to say (and keep saying), OTOH, was "we would prefer and appreciate you making peace with Vox".

Prefer and appreciate? Well, then, why not contact our nation via standard diplomatic channels and get into a little more detail? You obviously would prefer & appreciate peace because it confers some benifit to Lego. Some benifit you would lose if we wipe out Vox. If it is other than merely keeping GS from gaining too much land, perhaps it would be something that could at least be discussed with us (such that Vox's demise, now virtually assured, will not harm your teams interests).

How about a chat between our teams to clear the air on this matter?

-Arrian